Figure 1 depicts the extent of the emigrants’ political sway. For every percentage point increase in emigration to a full democracy, there was a corresponding 1.3 percentage point decrease in Communist votes in Moldova’s 2009 elections.

This spillover of political beliefs outweighed the exit effect, or the potential for Communism to become more highly concentrated as liberal voters left. In fact, this spillover effect was so strong that the authors attribute the end of Communist rule in Moldova during their 2009 elections in part to emigration.